Expecting the Unexpected
by padfoot's prose
Summary: When Rose Weasley - Gryffindor Prefect, straight-A student - gets a piercing, a lot of people are very unimpressed. But one person isn't. And only that one person has the courage to ask what everyone else is REALLY wondering: Where is it...? Rose/Scorpius
1. Chapter 1

**Yes, I'm back!**

**And yes, it's another threeshot!**

**The reason for two threeshots being posted in a relatively short amount of time is that I was convinced I had writers block, only now I'm kind of thinking that I don't. And that maybe the real reason why I haven't written a story I'm supposed to have besn working on is because I'm lazy. Or something.**

**Anyway this is for _HollyWrites_'s It's Quite Simple, Really Challenge on HPFC. I had to write a story including Rose/Scorpius and the house Slytherin in the period NextGen with the prompt "What the fizzing whizbee?"**

**Hope I did well enough for you all!**

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"What the fizzing whizbee is THAT?"

Rose blushed as her brother stared at the tiny diamante on her belly button.

"It's a piercing," Rose said, touching it protectively. "All the girls in Gryffindor have been getting them, ever since Nancy Myers found the spell to do it during the holidays."

"There's a spell for that sort of thing?"

"Shhh!"

Hugo glanced guiltily at Rose's closed bedroom door, and the two were silent as they listened for sounds of their parents coming to investigate. When they had waited for a minute and no noise had come, Rose sighed, dropping her top to cover her stomach again and flopping down to sit at her desk chair.

"I just can't believe you got a _piercing_," Hugo admitted, his tone disbelieving. "I mean, Lily might get one, sure. But _you_? Why do you even want a piercing anyway?"

Rose shrugged in response, spinning on her chair to glance out the window, looking down at the gravel drive way at the front of the house.

It was the morning of the last day of the Christmas Holidays, and Rose and Hugo were waiting to be picked up by Harry and Ginny, who'd offered to take them to station so they could get the train back to Hogwarts. Courtesy of Hermione's impeccable planning, both siblings were already packed, with their trunks set neatly by the door of the house, Hogwarts robes and Rose's shiny Prefect badge on top so they could get changed on the train.

In an effort to escape from their parents' embarrassingly long goodbyes, Hugo had come up with the plan to hide out in Rose's attic room until the last moment. The Potters were famous for always running late, and if they were in a rush to leave, Ron and Hermione would have no choice but to wave a quick goodbye as Hugo and Rose were hurried out. It seemed like a good plan, but the main problem with it was that it demanded the two children to sit in a room together for almost an hour, making as little noise as possible and checking out the window every so often to see if their aunt, uncle and cousins had arrived yet. It was in this atmosphere of intense boredom that Rose had shown her brother her new piercing, which she had been hiding quite successfully since the last day of last term.

"The other girls were surprised, too," Rose confessed, spinning her chair back around to face Hugo again. "I don't know why. Just because I get good marks doesn't mean I can't do anything even slightly rebellious."

Hugo lifted his hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail with a pained expression that Rose tilted her head questioningly at.

"Actually," Hugo explained, "It sort of does."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, everyone just expects you to be so-" Hugo broke off as Rose suddenly spun around again, peering out the window.

"Is it them?" Hugo jumped up from his spot on the bed and ran over to the window, watching in delight as a car pulled in to their driveway, Harry and Ginny's faces visible in the front seats.

Exchanging grins, the siblings watched as their three cousins tumbled from the car: James now a mature sixth year with a book clutched in his hand, Albus taller than ever, and Lily, her waist-length red hair fanning out behind her as she ran to ring the doorbell.

"Time to go," Hugo announced, and didn't bother waiting for his sister as he hurried to wrench open her door and disappear downstairs.

Rose laughed at the sound of him sprinting away, eager to get his moment of male-bonding with Albus before she disrupted them. She checked her top, pulling the hem to straighten it and make sure the fabric didn't catch on her piercing, and grabbed a hair-elastic from her desk. Tying her hair up in a messy ponytail, she left the room, careful to close the door behind her. before leaving, Rose pulled her wand from her pocket to cast a quick locking charm on her door. Of course, her mother would have no trouble breaking the spell, but Rose inwardly hoped that, if her parents discovered the charm, they'd accept her attempt to keep them out of her room and refrain from prying.

At least, that was the plan. However, Rose reflected as her mother plastered her with kisses and her father insisted on a 'Weasley family hug' before her and Hugo were permitted to leave, even the best laid plans could go astray. Catching a glance of Albus and Lily's amused expressions from under her father's arm, she silently vowed never to follow Hugo's advice again.

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**Yay! Review?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again!**

**I actually wrote this whole story in one go, and although it is significantly shorter than my Teddy/Victoire one, I thought making it a threeshot would still be a good idea, so I did.**

**With that in mind, here is part 2!**

**Also, just to warn readers, I was torn between describing the Howler how it is in the book and how it is in the movie, so I sort of used a bit of both. I'm not really sure if it worked though... feel free to complain via reviews!**

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The Howler arrived on the second day of term, an innocent red envelope dropped into Rose's bowl of porridge by a vaguely familiar owl. Of course, Rose was suspicious of the envelope from the moment of its arrival, as it wasn't normal behaviour for owls to simply drop envelopes without coming down and presenting them to their recipients. In fact, the only possible reason for an anonymous Howler to arrive for Rose would be because the sender didn't want her to reattach the letter to the owl and send it off again, as she had done once before, terrifying the poor bird when the Howler went off later as its carrier was soaring back home to her parents. They hadn't been particularly impressed when their owl arrived home with the feathers on its bottom half all slightly singed.

"Oh, no," Albus was sitting next to his cousin when the Howler arrived and he was already leaning away from her, his eyes fixed on the smoking letter.

From down the table, Hugo quickly swallowed his bite of bacon and shot a look at his sister. Only one thing could have happened to make Ron and Hermione angry enough to send a Howler: they'd found out about the piercing.

"Oh, no," Rose agreed, hurriedly glancing around for a route to escape into the Entrance Hall.

Unfortunately, by this point other people had noticed the smoke now positively billowing from the envelope, and the usual movement of the Great Hall seemed to have been put on pause so everyone could watch. Rose felt her cheeks burn and wished she could melt straight into the floor as all around her she heard conversations break off, faces turning to look and laugh at her embarrassment.

Suddenly, a tongue of flame leapt up from the envelope, making Rose scream as she launched herself away from the red paper, which had now lifted itself off the table and opened of its own accord, turning around to face its recipient.

"ROSE WEASLEY! HOW DARE YOU GET A PIERCING! AND WITH OUT EVEN TELLING US! ALL I DID WAS GO TO TIDY YOUR ROOM AND THERE IT WAS, SITTING ON YOUR DESK FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE! A _PIERCING_?"

Magically magnified, Rose's mother's voice was screaming its message through the Great Hall, much the amusement of the many watching students. Rose, utterly mortified, shrunk further into the bench and beside her, Albus (who had also gone red, simply by association) spared her a shocked glance.

"HOW COULD YOU HAVE GONE AND DONE THAT? NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO ASK PERMISSION FROM YOUR FATHER AND I! WE COULD'VE GOT A PROFESSIONAL TO DO THE PIERCING FOR YOU, WE COULD'VE _TALKED _ABOUT IT FIRST, BUT NO! INSTEAD YOU HAD TO GO OFF AND HAVE ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS CAST A VERY COMPLEX CHARM AND PROBABLY MAIM YOU FOR LIFE! SPELLS LIKE THAT AREN'T EASY TO REMOVE AND I SWEAR IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS YOU ARE GOING STRAIGHT TO ST MUNGO'S!

"YOUR FATHER AND I ARE EXCEEDINGLY DISAPPOINTED WITH YOU – A _HOGWARTS PREFECT_ – BREAKING THE RULES THAT WE HAVE SET DOWN FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY! I THOUGHT _YOU_ WOULD KNOW BETTER!"

With a final flickering flame, the letter fell silent, tearing itself up and falling as a shower of confetti onto the Gryffindor table. Rose exhaled, her eyes watering in a mixture of anger, humiliation and regret.

Why had she ever agreed to get the stupid piercing? Already Hugo had told her it was a bad idea, and now her parents too! And, judging by Albus and Lily's shocked expressions, they were also unpleasantly surprised by the news.

"A piercing?" Albus repeated. "Really, Rose?"

With a sob, the redhead stood and ran from the hall, her face buried in her hands and her sole desire to get far, far away from everyone who knew of her stupidity.

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**Yes, I will admit that was quite short, but the next one is epically long, so it evens out, I promise!**


	3. Chapter 3

**And here it is - the end to the story. Oh the fun times we've had! It's going to be sad to say goodbye...**

**Oh, by the way, this is actually the bit where I fulfil all of the challenge's criteria. The other two chapters were just a set up for the real action!**

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"Rose?"

Rose started at the sound, having been relatively sure until now that no one other than herself ever came to this particular part of the school.

"Rose, is that you?"

The voice was a male's and it was coming closer.

Wiping her face with the sleeve of her robes, Rose stood and drew back a bit into the corner of the dungeon room she'd been hiding out in since that morning's embarrassment. She took her wand out of her pocket and glanced at the large wooden crate that sat by the back wall of the room, wondering whether Wingardium Leviosa would be strong enough to lift the heavy-looking crate so she could put it in front of the door. Deciding it wasn't worth risking the racket it would make if the spell failed halfway through and the crate fell to the floor, she instead pointed her wand at the closed door, going over all the hexes she knew as she waited for the knob to be turned.

As the footsteps of the person outside approached, finally stopping outside the door, Rose bit her lip, tensing herself in anticipation of the moment they'd step into her range. In the back of her mind, there was a little voice insisting on the insanity of Rose's actions: she'd been hiding out down here for what could very well have been most of the day (it was impossible to tell this far down into the depths of the school), it was only natural that someone would come looking for her, and that person probably only wanted to comfort her and insist that the whole Howler incident really wasn't all that bad and that she really should get over it and go back to class already. It took more effort than Rose wanted to use to silence the little voice and focus back on person that had now stopped outside the door of the room.

Unexpectedly, a sharp knock on the door sounded, making Rose jump and immediately drop her wand. Scrambling to pick it up, she couldn't make out the words as the person outside said something, and had to ask, "What?" to the stone walls and thick wooden door so the person could repeat themself.

"I was just wondering if that's you in there," the person outside explained. "But obviously it is."

Rose blushed at her blunder, not even bothering to raise her wand again now that her hideout had so obviously been discovered.

"I'm going to come in now," the person warned. "So please try not to hex me."

Slowly, cautiously, the door opened, and Rose sighed heavily as the face of Scorpius Malfoy appeared from behind it. He looked her up and down once, taking in her puffy eyes, red face and lowered wand, and turned to shut the door behind him.

Scorpius took a few seconds to ensure that the door was properly closed, before spinning back to face the room, his eyes first scanning the windowless walls, empty crate and the single candle that Rose had bothered to light, flickering feebly from its bracket by the door. Then his gaze landed on Rose, grey eyes meeting blue, and he finally took a step towards her, quickly followed by another as he moved across the room, stopping a foot or so in front of her.

"Rose, Rose, Rose..." he sighed, raising a hand to clap her on the shoulder. "What are we going to do with you?"

Scorpius's teasing tone seemed to somehow relieve the tension from the still air of the dungeon room, and at it Rose relaxed, her expression pulling into a sort of grimace.

"A piercing!" Scorpius continued, his hand still placed patronisingly on her shoulder. "A _Prefect_ with a _piercing_! Why, it's unheard of! Never been done before in the history of the school! You ought to be ashamed."

"I _am_ ashamed," Rose admitted, pulling away from Scorpius's hand and flopping down to sit on the floor. "And I know I shouldn't be. I mean, why should I care what they all think? My mother and father and brother and cousins – _they_ didn't get the piercing. I did. Why should I let what they think get to me?"

"Good point," Scorpius agreed, his tone still somewhat amused as he looked down at her.

"I mean, sure, it was a bit of a spontaneous decision. But so what? Just because I'm a Prefect and Weasley doesn't mean I can't be spontaneous! I mean, they say my uncle Harry had a tattoo of a Hungarian Horntail on his chest when he was at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake! It doesn't get much more spontaneous than that!"

Scorpius nodded. "Yes, a _Hungarian Horntail_ – what could be worse!"

"It's not like they could all expect me to be Little Miss Perfect like my mother – perfect marks, perfect reputation, bloody perfect little life. But I'm not her. I don't even want to be her!"

"I don't want you to be her either. That'd make this-" he pointed between himself and Rose "-awkward."

"Exactly! So, even if I did want to be like her, it's not like I even could be if I tried. I mean, she was oh-so-perfect at everything, but I'm not like that – I never will be like that!"

Scorpius wrinkled his nose, not agreeing nearly as strongly with that remark as he had with all the others. His lack of enthusiasm made Rose stop her rant, frowning up at him.

"What?" she prompted, when he didn't offer an explanation of his reaction.

"Well, I wouldn't go saying that you'll never be like that, never be perfect."

"Why not?" Rose asked stubbornly. "I mean, I won't be, right? So why try?"

Scorpius Malfoy, of all people, Rose thought, should've been one to accept with the greatest speed that she was far from perfect...

On the first day of her first year at Hogwarts, five and half years ago, he'd accidentally bumped into as he passed by her and Albus in a corridor, hurrying to class.

"Sorry," he'd muttered, his voice about as anxious as nervous as she'd felt.

Barely five seconds later, three of her cousins and the Herbology teacher, Professor Longbottom, had appeared seemingly from nowhere, and a combination of a tripping charm, jelly legs jinx and loud yell had stopped Scorpius in his tracks, making him fall spectacularly to the floor, his legs wobbling rapidly as he struggled to grab his books.

"Think you can bully my cousin, huh?" James had threatened, looming over the tiny blonde-haired first-year as he attempted to stand, only to fall over again when his legs refused to stay still beneath him.

Victoire and Dominique were close behind James. The former was looking positively venomous, her wand still pointed down at the struggling boy and her expression full of contempt at the success of her jinx, her crowd of seventh-year friends watching on as they waited nearby.

Scrambling desperately to butt into the small crowd of her cousins, Rose explained hastily through panting breaths that Scorpius really had meant no harm and that he'd only bumped her because he was nervous about being late and hurrying to class, just like she was. She convinced her cousins to lift the various spells that they'd cast, and when they begrudgingly obeyed she offered her hand to the humiliated boy, repeating her apologies. Scorpius had stayed silent through the whole embarrassing ordeal, accepting Rose's hand and apologies with a nod, his gaze fixed on the ground to avoid the glares of the students around him.

"Hurry on, then," Profressor Longbottom had ordered, and the crowd quickly dispersed, leaving the two first years as lost and worried as ever about which direction to go in to get to Potions.

"I'm sorry," Rose had repeated as the corridor emptied, Albus leaving with the others, not realising that the redhead had lingered behind.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Scorpius said quietly, still not meeting her eyes as he swiftly ran off.

From then on, a strange sort of bond had formed between the two, acknowledged only in shy exchanges of glances when they were studying at nearby tables in the library, or a blush when they caught each other's gaze in the Great Hall. Slowly, the bond developed into a somewhat strained friendship – one that was secret and subtle, but surprisingly strong. Over the years, Rose's cousins had eventually learned to lay off Scorpius, that the new Malfoy was no real threat to them, but he still sometimes played the recipient of some of James's pranks, at least when Rose wasn't able to warn him beforehand. Thankfully, he always accepted the unfounded animosity with a good sense of humour, often relaying the stories to Rose as they studied together into the late hours of the night.

Still, their murky past made it very clear to Rose that she was far from perfect, and that if anyone should be able to see that it should be the tall, blonde boy before her, whose expression was currently one of justification – argumentative.

"It's not like anything your cousins have ever done to me has been your fault," Scorpius pointed out. "So their imperfections can't be blamed on you."

"It's very generous of you to say that. Not to mention convenient, because by saying it isn't my fault you can still implicate everyone else."

"Yes, but I'm not trying to convince you of everyone else's perfection."

Rose gave Scorpius a sideways look, "Are you trying to convince me of mine?"

He shrugged again, the competitive look gone and a bit of shyness showing in his eyes.

"Maybe."

Rose smiled, pushing her back off the wall to sit forward a bit, up onto her knees to look more closely at Scorpius when he refused to meet her eyes.

"You think I'm perfect?" She asked, unable to hold back a grin.

Scorpius's expression became increasingly more awkward, his eyes darting to look at a section of wall over Rose's shoulder as he muttered, "Well... no. I'm just saying that it _could_ be argued that you _are_ perfect." He paused, his gaze meeting hers for a second before swiftly moving away again. "If someone wanted to argue it," he added quickly.

Biting her lip, Rose leant further up, beckoning for Scorpius to move closer. An expression of apprehension on his face, he bent down a bit, until his face was only a little above hers.

She turned her head to whisper in his ear. "Don't worry. Sometimes I catch myself thinking you're kind of perfect, too."

Rose leant away again, stifling a laugh when she caught sight of his expression: utterly dumb-founded, as if he'd just seen a troll in tutu doing the Macarena. Then, quite suddenly, his expression changed, and his eyes were focussed intently on hers. Detachedly, Rose felt a shiver run through her body as goosebumps that had nothing whatsoever to do with the cold erupted up her arms.

"Kind of perfect, huh?" Scorpius asked, his lips curved into a reluctant smile.

Mutedly – unable to talk, even if she'd wanted to – Rose smiled and nodded.

When Scorpius Malfoy kissed her, Rose expected it to be epic. She expected fireworks, trembles, butteflies... none of them came. Instead, she got the rather pleasant feeling of Scorpius's soft lips moving against hers; slowly, shyly at first, but then more confidently, pressing harder, moving more urgently, as if afraid that her eagerness to kiss him back might evaporate in no time at all.

Averse to the misguided idea that Scorpius's apparent feelings weren't reciprocated, Rose endeavoured to convince him beyond reasonable doubt that she very much wanted to be right where she was, kissing him as if there was no tomorrow. She let her hands slide up his chest, wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer to where she still knelt on the ground. He willingly let himself be pulled, almost falling onto her in his eagerness to be nearer. The two separated for a moment as Scorpius quickly organised his legs on the ground beneath him, choosing to kneel too before crashing his lips against Rose's again, their bodies closer together than before.

Rose almost groaned in delight as a hand skimmed up her arm, over her neck, and swiftly found its way to her face, holding her cheek as its fingertips dove into her silky red hair. Scorpius's other hand lifted to hold her side, pausing as if asking for permission before slipping around her robes, under her shirt and onto her skin. Sparks seemed to fly as her caressed her hip, the small of her back- his hand exploring the hidden recesses of her body that he'd never imagined being allowed to touch. Then his fingers found the tiny diamante, nestled in her belly button and he pulled away, laughing under his breath.

"What?" Rose asked, somewhat breathlessly, her hands still draped around Scorpius's neck. "Did I do something wrong?"

Scorpius shook his head hurriedly, "No, not at all. It's just that, well, I found your piercing." He watched with an expression of delight as Rose blushed. "See I think the real question raised by that Howler wasn't _why_ you got the piercing. Everyone was secretly wondering _where_ you got it."

Rose's blush deepened and she gasped in horror, bringing one of her hands to mouth as she imagined the terrible rumours that must already be spreading through the school like Fiendfire.

"Oh, Merlin," she whispered.

Scorpius laughed, untangling himself from her and moving to sit beside her, slumped against the wall.

"It's okay," he insisted, picking up her hand that had fallen to the floor when he moved and entwining his fingers in hers. "The rumours never last long. Your perfect reputation will be back in no time, I'm positive."

Rose still looked mortified (or at least as mortified as someone could look when half their face was hidden behind their hand) and wouldn't respond.

"You know what?" Scorpius offered in an attempt to convince Rose to stop stressing about the piercing and go back to kissing him. "I wasn't actually surprised to hear you'd got a piercing. It sounds just like the Rose Weasley I know to do something like that – defy your parents' rules, break the stereotype, take the risk of doing something stupid because you just know it'll work out for the best."

One of Rose's eyes appeared from between her fingers, peering at Scorpius.

"Really?" she asked, "You're not surprised?"

"Nope." Scorpius grinned. "Getting that piercing is just like being friends with me – no one expects it, and you have to sort of keep it secret, but it's still an absolutely awesome idea."

Hesitantly, Rose smiled, letting Scorpius reach up and pry her hand from her face.

"It was a pretty awesome idea," Rose agreed.

"What? Me or the piercing?"

Rose grinned, leaning in. "You'll never know." And she kissed him. And, all of sudden, he didn't really care.

In fact, Scorpius was so busy not-caring that both he and Rose failed to hear the footsteps of the large group of Slytherins who had just finished lunch and were heading to their common room to grab books before the second half of classes started. He was so entirely devoted to just how little he cared that he momentarily forgot that the entrance to his house common room was behind a portrait just outside of this very room, and that inevitably the closed door would draw attention to the usually quite deserted area of the school. Even once the door of the room had been opened, and several Slytherin fourth-years had stared for almost a full minute with expressions of disbelief at the couple entangled by the side of the room, the girl's red hair and scarf reflecting the dancing flame of the candle above them, neither Rose nor Scorpius had noticed them at all.

It was only when one of the members of their audience suddenly let out a yell that the unsuspecting couple broke apart, utterly mortified at the small crowd staring at them.

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"Scorpius _Malfoy_?" The voice demanded. "Rose _Weasley_? What the fizzing whizbee is going on here!"

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**I ask now for your forgiveness, because I am about to go on a rant, and I would appreciate it if you'd read it:**

**My last threeshot was a Teddy/Victoire piece entitled _Of Christmas, Cousins and Special Cuddles_. Like this, I wrote it all in one go, but in an attempt to shamelessly exploit my readers and maximise my reviews, I posted it in three goes. (Actually, it was a lot longer than this and I didn't have time to edit all three chapters at 4am when I posted it, but whatever, the review thing was a reason too.) As you may have noticed, I didn't do that with this piece. That is for three main reasons:**

**1. I DID have time to edit all this**

**2. I'm supposed to be doing school work tomorrow, because I very clearly am not suffering from writer's block and are perfectly capable of writing my 6000-word story for school**

**3. I (secretly) don't actually believe that there are as many Rose/Scorpius readers as there are Victoire/Teddy ones.**

**The unoffcial fourth reaosn is that I'm hoping anyone who reads this is so offended by the Rose/Scorpius comment that they quickly go on and review to tell me just how wrong I am, meaning that I end up with the number of reviews anyway. And yes, I know it's insanely shallow to care that much about reviews, but they just make me feel good. That's not so bad, is it?**

**So pretty please with sugar on top, prove to me that it was a good idea for me to be generous and post this whole story at once so you didn't have to wait, and review. My Teddy/Victoire piece has 24 reviews currently. If you can beat that by the end of the week, I will go into the New Year a very happy girl!**


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